Yanyan Cui
Minzu University of China
yanyansylvia@gmail.com
(Last updated: March 2024)
Bio
I was born in Yanji, Jilin. As a Chinese Korean, the local Korean dialect is one of my native languages (the other is Mandarin). I graduated from Jilin University with a BA in Journalism in 2005, and entered the MA program on Chinese Linguistics at Peking University the same year. I received both my PhD in Theoretical Linguistics and MS in Computational Linguistics from Georgetown University in 2015. I started my first academic job at Minzu Univeristy of China in July 2016. I worked in the School of Chinese Ethnic Minority Languages and Literatures until July 2023, and transferred to the Center for College English afterwards.
Education
Sep. 2008- |
| Georgetown University |
Nov. 2015 |
| PhD in Linguistics |
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| M.S. in Computational Linguistics |
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Sep. 2005- |
| Peking University, China |
June 2008 |
| M.A. in Linguistics and Applied Linguistics |
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Sep. 2001- |
| Jilin University, China |
June 2005 |
| B.A. in Journalism |
Research
My research interests center around semantics and pragmatics, with a focus on the study of modality related phenomena in natural languages. I also complement my theoretical research with quantitative corpus study and fieldwork.
Current projects
·Ego-marking: a National Social Science Foundation funded project (21BYY169). The theoretical goal is to make clear the core semantics of egophoricity, and how this category is related to evidentiality, epistemic authority, perspective shift, etc. The empirical goal of the project is to describe how egophoricity is expressed in Mandarin and Korean, two languages in which morphological ego-marking has not been reported. In the latter aspect, I pay special attention to the tendencies of usage revealed by the quantitative studies.
·Semantics of attitudes: a long-term project, with the goal of providing a fine-grained semantic/pragmatic analysis for various attitude predicates based mainly on Mandarin and Korean data.
Publications
·Papers
2022 | On the syntax and semantics of the nominative causee in Korean syntactic causatives. (韩语句法使动句中役事的句法与语义研究)，Foreign Language Teaching and Research (《外语教学与研究》)，Vol.54, No.3, 349-361. |
2019 | Mingming Liu and Yanyan Cui, Situating Mandarin Wh-indefinites in the Typology of Modal Indefinites, Journal of Foreign Languages, vol.3, 2019. |
2019 | Egophoric marking in Xinyingpan Pumi. Hanzangyu Xuebao (《汉藏语学报》Journal of Sino-Tibetan Languages) 11. |
2013 | Cui, Yanyan and Ting Chi. Annotating Modal Expressions in the Chinese Treebank. In Proceedings of the IWCS 2013 Workshop on Annotation of Modal Meaning in Natural Language (WAMM). |
·Dissertation and Thesis
2015 | Modals in the scope of attitudes: a corpus study of attitude-modal combinations in Mandarin. PhD dissertation, Georgetown University. |
2015 | A two-dimensional schema of modality type annotation. Master Research Paper, Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University. |
2008 | A study of the argument realization of Mandarin VN-verbs: from the perspective of event structure. Master’s Thesis, Peking University. |
Presentations
·Talks
2024.04 | On the behavior of perspective sensitive items in de se attitude reports in Mandarin. The 3rd International Symposium on Formal Approaches to Meaning in Chinese. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou. |
2024.03 | Korean Question Particle -kenka(yo) from the Perspective of Ego-marking. The 4th Colloquium on Mandarin Sentence Final Particles (第四届现代汉语句末助词研讨会), Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou. |
2023.06 | Ego-marking from a quantitative perspective – the case of jingran(竟然) and shenzhi(甚至). Colloquium on semantics of Mandarin adverbs (现代汉语副词句法语义研讨会), Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou. |
2022.11 | Bound roots in Mandarin revisited. MUC Quantitative Linguistics Round Table 2022. Minzu University of China, Beijing. |
2021.06 | Scalarity and mirativity: on the meaning of Korean adverb ta. Formal linguistics and Language Variations 2 (第二届形式语言学与语言多样性) , presented online, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies ,Guangzhou. |
2020.11 | The case of causee in Korean syntactic causative constructions. GUFS Colloquium on formal linguistics(广东外语外贸大学形式语言学论坛) , presented online, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou. |
2019.12 | Yiding (一定) as an embedded concord modal. Colloquium on semantics of Mandarin adverbs (现代汉语副词句法语义研讨会) ,Guangdong University of Foreign Studies ,Guangzhou. |
2019.04 | Two varieties of suspect: Mandarin huaiyi and Korean uisimha-(delivered in English), Formal linguistics and Language Variations, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou. |
2019.03 | Co-presented with Samtan(三木旦). The perception of aspirated fricatives in Kecai dialect of Amdo Tibetan. Invited talk, Peking University, Beijing. |
2018.07 | The phonology of Kecai vernacular of Amdo Tibetan (《安多藏语科才话的语音特点》, with Samtan and Zong Xiaozhe), The 2018 Annual Conference of the Descriptive Linguistics Committee, Chinese Minority Languages Association (中国民族语言学会描写语言学专业委员会2018年年会), Baise College (百色学院), Baise, Guangxi. |
2018.06 | The methodology of semantic fieldwork and its application in foreign language studies (语义调查的田野方法及其在外语研究中的应用), invited talk, School of Oriental Languages and Cultures (东方语言文化学院), Beijing Language and Culture University (北京语言大学), Beijing. |
2018.04 | Methodologies of Linguistic Fieldwork: introduction and examples, guest lecture for Language as Evidence (delivered in English), Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Tsinghua University, Beijing. |
2017.08 | The distribution and function of the aspect markers of Xinyingpan Pumi (新营盘普米语体标记的分布与语义特点), The third International Conference on Linguistic Typology, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai. |
·Posters
2014 | Micro-variations within Embedded Concord Modal Constructions. Poster presented at The fourth Mid-Atlantic Colloquium of Studies in Meaning (MACSIM4), New Brunswick, NJ. |
2012 | Future: scheduled or predicted: a supervised disambiguation of the Chinese future marker jiang. Poster presented at Workshop for Women in Machine Learning, 2012. Tahoe, NV. |
2012 | Domain shifting and the existential inference triggered by Mandarin wh-word shenme. Poster presented at The second Mid-Atlantic Colloquium of Studies in Meaning (MACSIM2), College Park, MD. |
Teaching
Courses taught since 2017:
College English (required; undergraduate)
Scientific and Technical Translation (elective; undergraduate level)
Introduction to Linguistics (required; undergraduate and graduate level)
Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics (elective; undergraduate level; for all majors)
Introduction to Discourse Analysis (elective; undergraduate level; for all majors)
Linguistics Seminar: egophoricity (elective; graduate level; Peking University)
Introduction to Corpus Analysis (elective; undergraduate level; for all majors)
Statistics for Linguistic Studies (required; graduate level)
Fieldworks
Amdo, Kecai（科才镇）, Xiahe county, Gansu Province
Lisu, Tu’e（兔峨乡）, Lanping county, Yunnan Province
Pumi, Niuwozi（牛窝子村）, Xinyingpan, Ninglang county, Yunan Provinc
